DNA Ancestry Portrait: from saliva in your mouth to wall art

If you could get a giant QR code to put on your wall that represents certain …

What would you do with a giant QR code—you know, the kind of URL you can scan with your phone—of your DNA ancestry? When I was asked this question, I didn't know the answer. Does anyone really have a need or want for a huge QR code that lets people see details about your family history? And for $440 (or more) a pop?

Balk at the price all you want, but someone is apparently buying these things. The company behind them, DNA 11, creates a number of different personalized portraits (some of which Ars has given away in the past, in fact), including standard DNA portraits, fingerprint portraits, and kiss portraits. Once you send in your required sample and choose a color, the company prints it out on canvas for you to hang anywhere or give as a gift. Does it seem a little self-centered to hang a portrait of your own DNA structure on the wall of your own home? Yes, yes it does.

But the DNA Ancestry portrait, which differs from the DNA portrait, is a slightly different story. After placing your order for a DNA kit and sending back your sample, DNA 11 creates an art piece that represents your maternal lineage "dating back thousands of years." Okay, that's kind of interesting. Ever since genetic testing company 23andMe became popular, people with a few hundred dollars to burn have been getting more interested in learning about their lineage, so why not do that in a colorful piece of wall art?

The process

When you place an order, DNA 11 sends you a swab kit encased in an aluminum carrier, which contains two swabs, two vials, an envelope, instructions, and a swatch selector.

The instructions say to swab the inside of each cheek and then pop the swabs into the provided vials of liquid. I had questions, though: should I brush my teeth first, or would that just muddle things up with minty freshness? Should I just swish with water, or is my DNA going to get mixed up with the pork I just ate for lunch? (Calm down guys, it's a joke—everyone knows pig and human DNA always mixes.) I went ahead and swished—I decided to go with pig over mint—and performed the swabbing.

Pop your swabs into these vials when you're done

For your $440+, you strangely do not get a prepaid envelope to send the samples back in. Presumably the reason for this is because DNA 11 has multiple offices where you can send your sample (including one in Europe), which is a nice consideration. Still, the $4.90 it cost me to send mine back via USPS Priority Mail was slightly annoying considering how much the entire thing cost.

According to the company, it can take four weeks to receive your art after you send your sample back (plus shipping time on both ends)—mine took a little longer because it got caught up in the holiday order rush, but I am told this is not normal. Once DNA 11 is finished processing your sample, the company destroys it, but if you're getting the ancestry portrait, some of that data is obviously preserved in some form. This is what DNA 11 has to say about what's identifiable in your QR code:

"Keep in mind that this information is very general in nature and does not reveal any specifics as to your racial or cultural heritage as DNA haplogroups represent the earliest travels of your ancient ancestors. Migration in the recent millennium, combined with the fact that this only represents your mother's genealogy, means that your racial and cultural heritage may differ significantly from your mtDNA haplogroup. "

For those of you hoping to get an entire family tree's worth of information out of this thing, prepare to be disappointed. In fact, because it doesn't even cover both your mother's and father's side, it's even less informational. Indeed, the purpose of the DNA Ancestry Portrait is more for the art and less for the DNA part of it all—the fact that it's related to something you did (give your spit) is what makes it interesting.

The final product

DNA 11 allows you to choose from a number of color combinations, though you can also provide the company a Pantone selection or even a paint sample from your home if you'd like them to match it (for an extra fee, of course). I just chose one of the preselected color combos. The canvas portraits come in three sizes as well: 12" by 12", 20" by 20", or 40" by 40".

DNA 11 also offers split-screen portraits for two, three, and four people, so you could even get a single portrait to represent your entire family if you'd like.

So, what's my portrait look like? I'm glad you asked.

The finished product on my wall.

If you snap a photo of it with your phone*, it points to a page that reads:

Jacqui Cheng is part of mitochondrial haplogroup H, a predominantly European haplogroup that originated outside of Europe before the last glacial maximum (LGM). It first expanded in the northern Near East and southern Caucasus between 33,000 and 26,000 years ago, and later migrations from Iberia suggest it reached Europe before the LGM. It has also spread to Siberia and Inner Asia. Today, about 40% of all mitochondrial lineages in Europe are classified as haplogroup H. Haplogroup H is a descendant of haplogroup HV. The Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), the human mitochondrial sequence to which all other sequences are compared, belongs to haplogroup H.

The map to go along with my QR code's description.

(*Allegedly any QR code software should be able to read the print, but I was only successful using DNA11's official iPhone app, which I found to offer a pretty unsatisfying experience. There's no button to tell it to take a photo—it just does so whenever it feels like it, leaving you wondering what's going on—and there's no way to send yourself a link to the result once it pulls everything up. I managed to get the text off the phone for this review by selecting it all manually, copying, and then pasting into an e-mail to myself. What a pain.)

For those of you familiar with the kind of information that can be revealed by DNA, you can see how this information is particularly limited. Heck, ScienceBlogs described the offering as a "glorified barcode," which it absolutely is.

Still, it's a fun exercise and offers a decent conversation starter, if you can get past the apparent vanity of having your own DNA made into a QR code that other people have to scan in order to see what it means.

Is it worth the money? It's hard to say—most people (myself included) wouldn't spend that much on themselves for a big QR code, but it could make for a unique gift if you've got $500 to burn on a special someone.

25 Reader Comments

Though this is pretty neat, I much prefer the art print that DNA 11 does (that Ars gave away) over the QR code -- it's more appealing to my eyes. Maybe I'll spend my tax return on one....if the wife lets me that is.

Ok, Jacqui, but how does the DNA migration map make sense considering your ancestry? If your family did come from the far east, as your surname suggests, then it seems that their story about "north africa and iberia" was a complete miss...

Ok, Jacqui, but how does the DNA migration map make sense considering your ancestry? If your family did come from the far east, as your surname suggests, then it seems that their story about "north africa and iberia" was a complete miss...

Yes, and as I mentioned in the writeup: "...combined with the fact that this only represents your mother's genealogy, means that your racial and cultural heritage may differ significantly from your mtDNA haplogroup."

The information only loosely covers your mother's background (and as you can see, it's not particularly deep there either). I'm half Chinese from my father's side, so this doesn't show any of that.

Though this is pretty neat, I much prefer the art print that DNA 11 does (that Ars gave away) over the QR code -- it's more appealing to my eyes. Maybe I'll spend my tax return on one....if the wife lets me that is.

To be totally honest, I also prefer the regular art print to the QR code.

The DNA art is great when they get your order correct. The ancestry stuff is very hit or miss depending on how many genes they have cataloged, which means the more unusual your origins the harder to track. I believe National Geographic will do the same thing and not charge you as much.

The DNA art is great when they get your order correct. The ancestry stuff is very hit or miss depending on how many genes they have cataloged, which means the more unusual your origins the harder to track. I believe National Geographic will do the same thing and not charge you as much.

Right. A heavy part of DNA11's marketing revolves around the actual print, so I imagine most of the $$$ you pay is really for the art, while only a bit is for the actual DNA information.

This costs them very little and by the looks of it they spend more time on the PR and packaging than giving you something that really means anything. This could be soooo much better and so loosely corresponds to anything really personal that they lose what I think is cool about the whole idea. I wouldn't mind parting with decent cash for a barcode if the info that barcode led me / anyone I invited over to was actually personal. Instead, they say 'this person is the same as 40% of all other people but we don't really know cos all we look a mtDNA rather than doing a proper job at making something personal or unique even tho we went to all the trouble of extracting your DNA and we also made you pay for postage'.

Our custom QR reader works best but we test each piece using a few different QR readers before it leaves the shop. Specifically we use Scan Life and AT&T Scanner. They scan fine on both.

We have plans to add better sharing features to our iPhone app, but keep in mind that the page itself has a share button that allows you to post your results to Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Also, in regards to some commenters concerns about the cost relative to the data you receive. The price is not just for the test and the information but for the art piece as well. If you are looking for a more comprehensive ancestry test there are vendors that will provide that. You can then take your mtDNA data and provide it to DNA 11 and we'll make you a DNA Ancestry Portrait at $150 off the regular price since we don't have to run our own ancestry test.

The information only loosely covers your mother's background (and as you can see, it's not particularly deep there either). I'm half Chinese from my father's side, so this doesn't show any of that.

I'm curious, is there a technical reason they can't trace the father's side of it? Is that information just lost or is that an artifact of how their analysis works?

Great question Rene, in fact there is a technical reason.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from your mother's genes (X chromosome) and therefore since women do not have a Y chromosome but rather XX the only way they could do a Y-DNA or paternal ancestry test would be to get a sample from their father or brother.

We do offer a Y-DNA test service on request only but because of the logistics involved, and because our service is more for aesthetic and conversational purposes, we try to stick to the method that is the easiest for customers to complete and provides the most consistent results.

The information only loosely covers your mother's background (and as you can see, it's not particularly deep there either). I'm half Chinese from my father's side, so this doesn't show any of that.

I'm curious, is there a technical reason they can't trace the father's side of it? Is that information just lost or is that an artifact of how their analysis works?

Great question Rene, in fact there is a technical reason.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from your mother's genes (X chromosome) and therefore since women do not have a Y chromosome but rather XX the only way they could do a Y-DNA or paternal ancestry test would be to get a sample from their father or brother.

We do offer a Y-DNA test service on request only but because of the logistics involved, and because our service is more for aesthetic and conversational purposes, we try to stick to the method that is the easiest for customers to complete and provides the most consistent results.

Hope that helps.

mtDNA doesn't come from the X chromosome, it comes from the mitochondria. This DNA is separate from the DNA in your nucleus, and is not part of the normal 23 chromosomes. Since only the mother passes mitochondria to the child (sperm contains no mitochondria), the genes from mtDNA represent only the maternal lineage.

To do paternal lineage, you would have to look at genes on the Y chromosome, since this is only passed from father to son.

The information only loosely covers your mother's background (and as you can see, it's not particularly deep there either). I'm half Chinese from my father's side, so this doesn't show any of that.

I'm curious, is there a technical reason they can't trace the father's side of it? Is that information just lost or is that an artifact of how their analysis works?

Great question Rene, in fact there is a technical reason.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from your mother's genes (X chromosome) and therefore since women do not have a Y chromosome but rather XX the only way they could do a Y-DNA or paternal ancestry test would be to get a sample from their father or brother.

We do offer a Y-DNA test service on request only but because of the logistics involved, and because our service is more for aesthetic and conversational purposes, we try to stick to the method that is the easiest for customers to complete and provides the most consistent results.

Hope that helps.

mtDNA doesn't come from the X chromosome, it comes from the mitochondria. This DNA is separate from the DNA in your nucleus, and is not part of the normal 23 chromosomes. Since only the mother passes mitochondria to the child (sperm contains no mitochondria), the genes from mtDNA represent only the maternal lineage.

To do paternal lineage, you would have to look at genes on the Y chromosome, since this is only passed from father to son.

That's why I'm in PR and not genetics ;)

Thanks for the clarification but the underlying reason is the same, mtDNA is the easiest to collect as it is present in everyone.

How does the amount (approaching zero) of information here compare to the offerings from National Geographic, etc? That one is only 100 bucks so I've been thinking about doing it.

I've bought the NG test a few years back and it gave much more info. The results come with a code that gives you access to a website with lots of material about genetics, the NG research and your results.

As more samples are being added, the results may change so they tell you to once in a while go check to see if there is more info (that reminds me I haven't checked it in more than a year).

AFAIK, my info was correct. It told me what I expected, based on my known ancestry and physical traits.

Sounds like a complete and utter waste of money. I'd be interested if they gave a lot more detail about ancestry and allowed people to forgo the stupid "art pieces" and just get a plain report for around $100.